She’d moved west to Seattle; by phone
we compare treatments, numbers,
chances.
Hanging on, she says: we are survivors.
You’re in the hospital again, propped in bed with pillows keeping you from listing to one side or the other, and I’m sitting on a pink pleather chair I’ve pulled up next to the bed.
We watch Dr. Phil until 4:00. I always find this show melodramatic, but you seem riveted. You want to know about these people, their lives, their lies, what they’ll do with the information unveiled to them.
When Dr. Phil signs off, I switch on the Classic Country music station, and we talk.
Bang my shins, my temple on the gritty wall
Of Charlie’s deathbed
Where we do not wrest the truth
But beg him Let us change the (piss-stenched) sheets.
He will not go for tests, insists, denial overarching
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